accounting for taste

this week i was flipping through old magazines, tearing out pictures for an art activity and i couldn't help but notice our cultural shifts in style. these editions were from the late 80's and early 90's and featured women standing next to huge suburbans (the kind that are now for sale by the side of the road) with captions about "doing it all" and "for your sleek lifestyle". i mused to myself as i turned pages, seeing other ads for bulky furniture and laura ashley rose patterns, thankful that we've moved on. this morning, i treated myself to portland monthly and their special 2014 design issue, noticing the trend is definitely about less...smaller, stark, minimal and...a return to the 70's. bearded men in skinny jeans who are opening their own furniture cover businesses while making micro-brew on the side...living room ensembles that i would call "the jetsons (globe lights) meet thoreau (tree stump tables)" and everything organic: harkening back to the days before things like canning and organic food were "hip" or expensive. i got to thinking about what my style would be called. i am admittedly straddling the pre and post-pet era like some bridging the gap between having preschoolers and older children know that small children a white couch do not mix (i saw that in an ad, actually--a little girl frolicking on a white sectional, and laughed out loud). i fantasize about the clean-line "kinfolk" typography...of linen...of dragging my feet along a new rug...flopping myself on the bed and not having to run a lint-roller over it first. i think, right now at least, my style would be best termed "bohemian country real", bohemian owing to the fact that not much matches, country because pollen and compost bins and the aforementioned muck boots are a part of my daily life, and real because the place is completely comfortable AND functional to me. i'm content. it doesn't mean, however, that i don't salivate over the day when my carpet stays perfect or when i can have a micro-fiber suede couch without claw marks on it: all things new and fresh. but stuff is just stuff. the patagonia principle comes back to me--use it and use it and use it some more. so i get out my sewing basket and mend those small holes, put my great grandmother's quilt with mis-matched pillows back on the bed, dust AGAIN, and sit back realizing that there is beauty in all things original. surround yourself with what you like. and that, i think, will never go out of style.